Libya’s Interim Leadership Releases Its Members’ Names

Saturday

The Transitional National Council released the names of all members and promised to increase its roster to provide representation to newly liberated parts of Libya.

BENGHAZI, Libya — The Transitional National Council, recognized by 57 nations as the legitimate interim government of Libya, released the names of all of its members on Saturday for the first time and promised to increase its roster rapidly to provide representation to newly liberated parts of the country.

In interviews and a news conference, the council members said they were moving as quickly as possible to send representatives to Tripoli to dispel any doubts of tribal conflict or a split between the east, where the Libyan revolution began in this city, and the capital.

Eight members of the council and most of the executive board, which acts as a rebel governing body, have already arrived in Tripoli, and more will soon follow, according to the council’s vice chairman, Abdel Hafidh Ghoga. Although the capital’s airport had been closed because of shelling from forces still loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, they flew in a rebel aircraft to Misurata, which was recently liberated, and then went by road to Tripoli, he said.

Sounding ebullient from recent victories, the council members struck a conciliatory note, telling their fighters not to indulge in extrajudicial killings or revenge attacks, and calling on loyalist holdouts in cities like Surt to surrender and avoid more bloodshed.

But they also warned that any officials who had not already defected from the Qaddafi regime would be barred from future participation in political life, and might be prosecuted criminally.

Throughout most of the rebellion, the 31-member council revealed the names of only 13 of its members, citing security reasons. That led some critics to express concern that some of the others might be Islamic extremists who had previously been in the forefront of the internal struggle against Colonel Qaddafi.

The list released Saturday, of a council expanded to 40 members, did not appear to support that concern. Most of its members were relative unknowns. The only known Islamist on the list is Lamin Bel Haj, described by politicians in Benghazi as a member of the previously banned Muslim Brotherhood, which most Libyans regard as moderates. Mr. Bel Haj was described as taking charge of Tripoli for the rebels, and was one of five Tripoli names on the new council.

No women were added. Salwa Fawzi el-Deghali, one of four council members from Benghazi, remained the only woman.

Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the council, said it planned to increase its membership to 80.

With rebels tightening a ring around Colonel Qaddafi’s hometown, Surt, approaching it from both east and west, council members said they had called a halt to the advance to allow negotiations to proceed. “We don’t want to fight; it is better if we negotiate,” said Othman Ben Sassi, a new council member representing the western city of Zuwarah.

Council members were in no mood to compromise on Colonel Qaddafi and his sons, however, insisting the war could not be considered over and a government appointed until they were caught. “This revolution will not be completed until Qaddafi and his sons are captured,” Mr. Abdel-Jalil said. “As long as he’s about, he will always be a threat to Libya, and to the international community.” The council chairman said the rebels would not turn Colonel Qaddafi or his sons over to the International Criminal Court, as the court has requested, but would see them tried under Libyan law first.

Mr. Ghoga, the vice chairman, had some advice for another authoritarian ruler, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. “He should be extremely worried because he’s following in the same steps that Qaddafi did, and he is as doomed,” Mr. Ghoga said. “Without doubt, when the people of a nation have marched forward and demanded democracy and freedom, and, in particular, when there has been such a loss of blood, there is no turning back.”

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